This past Thursday I was headed over to a friend’s house to give her a basic photography lesson when I drove by this guy. I slammed on breaks while on the phone with my friend, whipped my truck into a local business parking lot and began walking back to him to see if he would let me do a portrait of him. As I was walking up to him he began crossing the road. I followed, looking his direction the whole time. I think he may have been wondering what my issue was. Once we were both safely across I introduced myself and told him his style had caught my attention as I rode by. I asked him if I could do a portrait of him, and he said yes.

So what you see above is one of several good shots I got of James. As a 61 year old army vet from New York, he told me “I’m a religious man and God is alive.” when I asked what one single thing he would want people to know about him, or life, would be when they saw the photo I did of him.

This portrait has since taken on a much greater meaning to me though. After I left him that afternoon and got to my friends place, I was showing her how to do something with her camera, and when I looked through its viewfinder, I thought to myself, “Man! The viewfinder in this thing sucks!” Everything seemed to be working right as far as the autofocus & meter operation went, but everything looked tinted and badly out of focus to me. Yet, the camera was telling me it was in focus. It was not a good feeling realizing that the camera wasn’t the issue. It was my left eye. My dominant eye. It had been slowly getting worse through the day as I worked at my computer, so I had just adapted and gotten use to it.

Well, later that night once I got home, I emailed my eye doctor and told her what I was experiencing. She emailed me back within minutes, telling me she needing to see me first thing that next morning. I was freaking out over it. The signs of retinal detachment weren’t there, but my vision had gotten really bad in that eye over the past 12 hour period or so.

To take my mind off of it, I went to processing this photo. I think I was trying to prove to myself that I didn’t need to have good vision in both eyes to still do photos I loved, and wanted to share with others.

The next day, Friday, was a scary one for me. My primary care optometrist didn’t like what she saw at all. The floaters I had paid her a visit over just a couple of weeks ago were now just one massive floater in my central area of vision. She sent me to a retina specialist who informed me that I was experiencing a certain specific type of retinal detachment. Luckily, I didn’t wait to come in any longer than I did, otherwise I would have needed all out surgery to keep from losing vision in that eye all together. He found a tear in my retina that he was able to fix with a laser procedure that afternoon – hopefully. He told me I might still need surgery, though.

So, with this being my dominant eye, I have been thinking a lot about how this will affect me and my work from here on out if my vision in it doesn’t get back to normal. Right now, it is no longer my dominant eye since I’m wearing an eye patch over it, even as I type this. Numerous people have mentioned to me about how scary they feel this must be for me as a photographer. But, you know, when you think about it, losing your vision would be devastating to most anybody, regardless of his or her profession. Just being able to see to read is critical to most every job I can think of. So, I’m in no worse of a position from a career standpoint than anybody else would be. It’s not the physiological operation of my eyes that really makes the photos I take to begin with anyway; it’s how my brain and heart interprets what they see that makes them – that and my desire to make them.

I took this photo of James with my vision in that eye already in bad shape – I just was ignoring it at that point and using my right eye. I then went on to process it that night after things had gotten even worse. So, now, I am just hoping and praying that the vision in my left eye can be fixed, but also am having to mentally prepare myself for the possibility that that just may not be possible. I processed this shot Thursday night. Looking at it today, there are things I would like to do differently from a postproduction standpoint, but I have decided to leave it as is. I’m pretty happy with it. It has a Rodney Smith type look to it – and that’s not a bad look to have. He’s one of my favorite photographers out there.

So, I have left this shot as is, because it is a reminder to me to be thankful for the one good eye I do have right now, and not worry so much about the bad eye. If I can still do work like this with my eye and nerves as they were Thursday night, than I’ll be alright, and very much appreciative of that.